I was just wondering if any of you guys knew of or had used a CV writing service? or could recommend one to me?

Applied for a couple of internal jobs and don’t seem to get anywhere so think the old CV needs the dust blowing off it and updating?

How was the feedback from the jobs you applied for?

None existent didn’t get past the paper sift!

What industry do you work in? To a point its industry specific.

I’ve worked for a large British Airline since 97 and with the current round of bad press and craze of outsourcing anything management can make a quick pound on, I think its time to start looking around.

What Ahsat said.

I worked in Engineering and my CV was pretty much a list of projects I’d worked on and codes, standards, software I’d worked with/to. Which is pretty much the industry standard.

Sent it to one of those CV writing places for free feedback and they said suggested it needed writing to give employers more idea of what I could do for them by emphasizing transferable skills like project management, best practice, sales, problem solving etc. Which I suppose is fair enough but I wouldn’t then pass a keyword search in an engineering recruiter (e.g. they might be looking for someone to implement BS9999 on a petrochemical plant, in which case they’ll probably search for BS9999 and my CV needs to be specific). Net result I ended up with 2 CV’s, one for engineering and one more general. Neither got me a job in the end.

Your best option if you’re not time pressured (i.e. you’re currently employed and not having to scattergun 10’s of applications a day) is to write a CV that specifically matches the advert, being very specific to the skills/experience they ask for.

Not sure on the truth as not written a CV in well over 20 years but good friend is a high flyer in big corporations and he says they use “robots” to read the CV before a human gets anywhere near it, any buzz words missing and you are committed to the scrap heap by the robot, if this is the case what a sad, sad world we have out there, no wonder idiots are appearing on every rung of the ladder, good luck in gaining new employment Dan!!

Yeah I would say in general always write the CV for the job. I always re-did mine but I was only applying occasionally, it needed updating anyway. May be difficult if you’re giving it to a recruiter or if you’re applying for hundreds of jobs of course.

as above – look at the epc/profile of the job and have some of the buzzwords on your CV. Then at the interview emphasise your skills and make them transferable.

Not sure on the truth as not written a CV in well over 20 years but good friend is a high flyer in big corporations and he says they use “robots” to read the CV before a human gets anywhere near it, any buzz words missing and you are committed to the scrap heap by the robot, if this is the case what a sad, sad world we have out there, no wonder idiots are appearing on every rung of the ladder,

The ‘problem’ is job hunting has evolved from sending out a CV and covering letter in an envelope to a job advertised in the newspaper into a ‘one click application’ system on a jobs website. So companies inevitably have to respond in kind by screening out more applications.

The next round would still be a manager sat with a hundred CV’s and then interviewing the best 10 or so so it shouldn’t make any difference to the caliber of the successful applicant, there’s just a bit more of a lottery to get there.

Dan, YGM

@ OP

Email me – I’ve got someone I’ve used.

A CV has one purpose, which is to get you an interview; it’s a sales pitch. If you’re not getting interviews, it’s not doing its job.

If you ask five people, you’ll get five conflicting pieces of advice. I’ve seen some dreadful CVs where they’ve clearly followed some random “good advice,” like taking a 4-page CV and fitting it onto two pages by using a microscopic font and no margins or white space in order to achieve some mythical target – a CV is as long as it needs to be.

The bottom line is that what needs to be on there is “what the recruiter is looking for,” which you can tailor to an extent by cross-referencing what’s on the job spec with what’s on your CV and making it match, but there’s a large amount of crystal ball required. I’ve worked for people who have randomly thrown 50% of CVs in the bin unread because they “don’t want to employ unlucky people.”

An easy win is to make sure you’ve got the basics right. When I’m reviewing CVs I view it as the first example of the quality of your work. Spelling mistakes, poor formatting, unless I’m desperate then it’s going in the bin.
I’m not a CV service, but I’d be happy to give it a critical once-over for you.

Oh, and,

It’s 2017. If I get a promising CV, the first thing I’ll do is see if I can find you on Facebook / other social media and see what you’re sharing publicly.

For CVs that might be auto scanned for buzzwords, what about putting a load of them in white text small font at the bottom of the cv 8)

Rickmeister @ back at you